


Waiting on a Friend

by OneShotWonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hell Trauma, Hurt Dean Winchester, POV Dean Winchester, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:21:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29611434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneShotWonder/pseuds/OneShotWonder
Summary: When Dean stops in a dive bar late at night to try to drink his way through the memories of hell, he meets a man with a dark secret that could finally be someone who understands what he went through in the pit.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Waiting on a Friend

Dean wasn’t ready to go back to the motel yet. Back to the Sam that was so different, barely his brother anymore. Long nights sneaking out to god knows where. Emotionless, cold, distant. _Or maybe I am the one that changed._

The thought caught him off guard, but most of his thoughts did these days, he was barely hanging on to who he used to be, barely able to cope with what he had become.

So he drank. The dive bars everywhere were the same. The same comforting sticky bar, same shitty selections on the jukebox, same sick desperation in the air. He let the ice roll around a bit in the whisky glass, clinking softly on each side before he swallowed the rest down. The ice barely had time to melt, he was drinking them so fast. How many doubles had he downed so far, four? Five? Anything to keep the memories away. Anything to keep his mind from wandering back to the pit. 

He tried to hit on the bartender when he came in, but he lost the heart for it. He was so tired. She was a strong looking older woman, probably about 45, with long dark hair and a pretty smile that could turn to a nasty grimace when a customer got too friendly. Just the kind of woman that would be perfect for him on a night like this. She would tell him what to do, take charge and give directions. He always liked women like that, nights where he didn’t have to think, just act, be able to please someone. But tonight he was too far gone. He just wanted to drink alone in peace. He felt the exhaustion creep into his muscles with each new mouthful of whisky, and prayed he could drink enough for a few hours of blackout sleep tonight. Before the nightmares started in flashes. That pitch dark sky blazing with sickening lighting. The pain. The guilt. 

The bartender slid him another, and nodded at the booth in the corner. 

“It's on him, he said to come over and talk with him for a while.”

Dean was immediately on edge, and annoyed. He didn’t want to get picked up by some old pervert. He sure didn’t want to talk to anyone, and he didn’t know if he had the funds to buy the inevitable next round if he did join the man. 

But there was something about the tone of voice of the bartender when she handed him the drink that gave him pause. 

He noticed the old man when he came in. He noticed everyone to be honest, he was a hunter after all, he couldn't turn that off, even when he was trying to relax. 

The man looked about three hundred years old, face shriveled like a raisin in the sun. His shoulders were hunched and he wore a half decent looking blazer and slacks. His feathery grey hair barely covering the sides of his head, leaving the top a mottled brown with age spots. But his eyes were clear grey, so light and sharp it was clear that he had his wits about him, despite his advanced age. 

And there was something about how the other patrons treated him. They took their caps off when they walked by him, or tipped their glasses of beer toward him like a seasick salute. It was a kind of odd reverence, and Dean’s curiosity won out over his caution. 

“Thanks for the drink.” Dean said simply and slid into the booth facing him, feeling a little off balance, especially since his back was now to the rest of the bar. 

“You looked like you could use it.” The man’s voice was surprisingly clear. Without the gravel or hoarseness of someone his age. 

“That obvious?” Dean almost smirked and decided he didn’t mind talking to this man for a bit. Maybe it would take his mind off of Sam and Hell for a few minutes. 

“Sometimes I like to guess.” The old man smiled and squinted at him mockingly. “Doesn’t seem like girl trouble, which is the usual case, and I don’t think anyone died.” He looked Dean right in the eyes, making him slightly uncomfortable. “I am gonna go with military, you just got back from deployment right?”

“Something like that.” Dean nodded cautiously at his perceptiveness and took another sip. “So is this what you do? Come to bars and try to figure people out?”

“It's better than TV I guess.” They both laughed, but then got quiet. Taking measured sips from their glasses. The man was about halfway done with a pint sized beer and Dean wondered how many he had and how quickly he would get plastered, the man was ancient after all.

“So what's your story then? I am no good at guessing.” Dean inquired.

“You are better than you want me to believe.” Those grey eyes felt like they were digging into Dean’s brain, and as much as he liked the man he was starting to get more uncomfortable. But the man waved off the intrusive statement. 

“My story is long and sad and can be told in time if you want to hear it. But tell me son, were you a POW, you have that air about you?”

Dean was defensive now. What right did this man have to ask that? Just because he was old, doesn’t erase the fact that it was a tactless question. “What makes you say that?”

“You just look like you came back from hell.”

Dean choked out a laugh with no mirth. This man didn’t have any idea how right he was. But he was a stranger who knew nothing, and he was getting annoyed that this old man thought he could just intrude in someone's life like this. He found he had to relax his fist slightly, feeling like he wanted to hit him. But surely one hit would obliterate the shriveled old face, so he shifted in his seat, and snapped back at the man. 

“What do you know about hell?!” His voice came out a bit louder and more aggressive than he intended, and he started to get up out of the booth. 

The old man just looked down and slowly pulled back the cuff of his blazer, struggling to undo the button of the white shirt underneath. When Dean finally got out of the booth, he looked back at the man with a grimace. 

The man's sleeve was now rolled up onto his forearm, where there was a small dark smudge. It took Dean a second to realize that it was a tattoo. A series of small neat numbers. The black ink faded to grey and smudged with age. 

“I know a bit about hell.” The man’s voice was almost a whisper. He stared down at the tattoo and then up at Dean, but avoided his eyes. 

“Oh” was all Dean could muster. He wasn’t very knowledgeable about history, he skipped most of high school and barely got his GED. But it was hard not to be intimately familiar with those small numbers. The tattoo that signified someone who spent time in the camps during the Holocaust. Dean didn’t know much, but he did know those places were as close to hell as someone on earth can possibly get. In the full minute he stood staring down at the old man, he made up his mind that this person in front of him could very well be one of the few people he could talk to. One of the handful of people in the world that could understand a part of where he had been and what had been done to him. _If not what I have done. I would have to find someone from the other side for that part._

He pushed the thought away and sat back down. 

“I am sorry. Things have just been... hard, since I got back.”

“No apology necessary, I don’t know anything about you or what you went through. It was rude of me to intrude. But you looked like you could use a friendly ear.”

They sat for a few minutes in silence, Dean throwing back the rest of his whisky and gesturing the bartender for another. _Fuck it, if I am going to say anything about this I hope I can forget about it when I wake up._

“I would try....to talk to my brother about it. But he wouldn't understand, and even if I could make him, I wouldn't want him to, ya know?”

He saw the old man nodding under lowered lids. He couldn't bring himself to look anyone in the eye right now. 

“The worst part is the memories. Do those...do they ever go away? Lessen?”

“No.” The old man was direct and straightforward. No platitudes or silver linings. It hurt to hear but it was also refreshing. 

“I just don’t know how long I can go on like this.” He found himself pouring out his thoughts, praying his drink would come quickly so he could pour more courage down his throat while he spoke. 

“Every day I seem to remember more, and the pain, the sights, the smells. The littlest things just bring it all back and suddenly I am drowning. What they did to me, what I became, I am a-”

He stopped himself and choked back a sob, holding it together. He couldn't tell this man about that part. About the part where he had become the torturer, the one who hurt countless souls. 

The old man nodded like he understood something more clearly and leaned back with a sigh, thinking something over carefully before starting to speak. 

“The last camp we went into was in the fall of 1944. My younger brother and I, by some miracle, had managed to stay together the whole time. I was seventeen, he was just ten. Our parents were long gone. I learned later that they had barely made it three months after we were forced from our homes, and in some strange coincidence they both died in different camps on the same day. 

“My brother was the only thing I had left, and I clung onto him fiercely, frequently going without food so he could eat a bit more. 

“One of the guards saw this the very first day and made it his mission to break us apart. But he was deranged, he wanted it to hurt. So he started to make me choose.”

The man took a shaky breath, and then a long pull at his beer, gearing up for the rest of the story he was telling.

“He made me choose a person in the camps to die. Them or my brother. 

“Each week he would come to us and point the gun at my younger brother's head and tell me to choose someone else in the camp to die. 

“I wish I could tell you that it was difficult for me. That I agonized and it tore at me at the time. I wish I could tell you I thought carefully each week, choosing the old or the sick.

“But it wasn’t like that. There was a part of me that enjoyed the power. The thrill of it. Having no power for so long will do that to you. You get a taste and you cling onto it for dear life. 

“So I just pointed at anyone. I didn’t care who. Mothers of children, babies, I just wanted my brother to live. His life was more important than every other person in that camp. And the guard would shoot them. Without pretense or mercy. I would point to someone and he would kill them.

His voice was quieter now, filled with shame, and Dean had to lean in closer to be able to hear. 

“Eventually the guard would ask me to choose someone to die for us to get extra rations, or new shoes. And as much as I hate to admit it, I played along. I still kept choosing. I probably could have stood up to him, found some bravery inside myself. But I was a coward.

“Sometimes the other prisoners would find me at night and beat me. A few times so badly I thought I would die. But they didn’t have much energy for it, as we ate less often. And everyone had so little hope. A gun to the head was almost welcome as opposed to the rumors we heard about the gas chambers. 

“I was a monster then. They turned me into one of them, something I hated even more than the people or the government that put us in those camps. 

Dean sat perfectly still. There were differences, yes, but it was just as horrifying as what he had been through, his own choices he had made. And he heard the same shame and guilt in the man’s voice that he had in his own. At its core, it was the same story. 

“Your brother, is he ok? I mean, did he...make it?” Dean didn’t know why he asked the question, he just had to know.

“Yes, he lives in Tennessee now with his wife, he has six children, ten grandchildren. But I haven’t spoken to him since the day we were liberated.”

“Why not?”

“Because they did break me, us. Whatever relationship we could have had. And I can’t look at him without seeing all the people I killed. He knows I love him and I think he understands why we can’t see each other. I pray every day he understands.”

The bartender brought their drinks, another double for Dean and another pint for the old man. She seemed to have a sixth sense for a lull in the conversation. 

“You ok over here hun?” She asked the old man, and he looked up to her with tear rimmed eyes. 

“Of course, thanks Suzie.” 

She nodded at Dean and let them be. 

Dean didn’t think he could say anything else. He let the man’s story wash over him for a few minutes, feeling much more sober than he had any right to be. But then he blurted out his question before he could stop himself. This man had to have some kind of answer. 

“How do you live with yourself?”

It took the man a long time to respond. He slowly drank more than half the pint, Dean’s drink was long gone, but he waited patiently. Burning with the need for this question to be answered. 

“You forgive yourself.

“You realize that what they did to you was on them and no one else. You were an animal trapped in a corner and it's _ok_ that the escape felt good. It's human that you were pleased when you got out. They messed with your mind and you would have never been there in the first placed if it wasn’t forced on you with torture that eroded your mind and body. In the end, you didn’t have any choice.” 

It was like the old man somehow knew what Dean had gone through. But his mind railed against the thought that he didn’t have a choice. He did have a choice. Every day he had a choice to say no to Alistair, to keep being the one poked and prodded. But he chose to get off the rack, he chose to start the torture. 

Even so, there was a small voice in the back of his head that agreed with the man. He was so used to the self-hate that he didn’t want to admit it, but he knew it was true. There was a part of him that knew he didn’t really have a choice. And he let that part slide to the front for a second. Let it have a place in his mind. _It wasn’t my fault._ Then he dipped back into the familiar self loathing. It was warm and safe there. The other, smaller voice was much too difficult to hold onto. 

He drained his glass quickly and started to leave. He knew if he stayed here longer he would say too much. He could even become emotional and cry. So he held onto the familiar burn down his throat and thanked the man. Helping him button up the sleeve of his shirt when his shaky hands wouldn’t cooperate. He hoped his timid “thank you” was enough. He hoped he showed the man with a simple look how much it meant to him to have someone to talk to about this. Someone who could truly understand. 

As he was going the old man raised his voice. “Don’t know how long you will be in town, but I am here every night. Come see me again if you want.” Dean nodded at him and slid his empty glass on the bar with a few bills, feeling the warm dizziness of the whisky in his limbs. 

And as he walked the few blocks back to the motel where Sam would inevitably be gone, he thought of how he could probably sleep without any nightmares tonight. How he had let that small voice tell him it was ok, and next time it would be a tiny bit easier to listen to it. And maybe even easier the next time after that. Healing wasn’t something he believed could ever happen for him, but maybe this was the start of him being able to move, even slightly, forward. 

He made a decision to visit the man again tomorrow. He wished he knew his name.


End file.
